John Ward Knox is an artist living and working in Auckland, New Zealand. He is a founding member and co-director of Newcall Gallery - an artist-run studio collective and gallery.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

toward a still life

Nothing ever turns out just how you want it. When I was carving this piece into the wall I faced many problems. During one of these periods I was sanding furiously, trying to overcome a particularly stubborn fact. A fine dust filled the gallery, and it was very beautiful to turn around and watch the slow waltz of particles in the light. I was reminded that in chemistry, a solution is when a gas, liquid, or solid is dispersed homogeneously in a gas, liquid, or solid. I felt grateful for the creation I was unwittingly making, but I was also aware that the dust would eventually settle, that this was only a temporary solution.

It was a real relief to clear away what wasn’t needed, to figure out that sometimes the solution is just rearranging the problem. In this case, working toward a still life meant turning my back on the thing that was most pressing for me at the time. Sometimes you just need to focus on something different.

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